The International

[katikat]

This is a weird movie. Don't get me wrong, I like movies/TV shows in which a group of people investigates the criminal activities of a certain organization/corporation, I really loved State of Play with James McAvoy or the whole Bourne movie series. But this film is weird because there is no pay-off, at least IMHO.

There's no real beginning. We jump right in the middle of an investigation led by the Interpol agent Salinger (Clive Owen) and the Washington ADA Whitman (Naomi Watts) who go against a powerful international bank. And the first half of the film is basically them losing every fight, every witness, every lead. At the same time, you don't really feel the danger, you just feel a bit annoyed that everything's going wrong for them. The whole thing becomes really interesting once they decide to change tactics, once Salinger makes Whitman burn him so that she can stay clean and he can go after the bank outside the law. Salinger finally starts making progress and the bank is slowly going belly up - and then it's all ruined by something really stupid. End of story and everything starts anew. Everything Salinger and Whitman did was for nothing. It's an incredibly frustrating ending. I would've loved the story if they had managed to bring the bank down. But this way? What was actually the point of the story?

You know what this film reminded me of? The Italian TV series La Piovra (The Octopuss). No matter what the main hero/heroine and his/her team did, the mob always won. Pretty realistic, I know - yet also incredibly frustrating. That's how I feel about this movie.